19 Jun 2017

This astonishing photo was taken today near Warren Street undergrond station in London:

It unmistakeably charts the progress of a prehistoric bird across the London clay that dates from the Jurastic period, and was used to pave the medieval streets. What a find!
PS. this photo does not appear in my book 'How Not To Be a Tourist In London' (Waiting for the third edition).

2 Apr 2017

19 Mar 2017

So I was annoyed by the latest Trump nonsense, first saying the UK was spying on him, then claiming to be just quoting someone on Fox News - so 'Don't blame me, it's their fault'. As seen on Twitter:

This is nonsense of course - like shouting 'FIRE' in a theatre, then claiming you were just quoting the hit song by Arthur Brown. So I replied to the chap and his pals this weekend, to make that point:

Shortly afterwards I was stnned to get this email message:

Crikey. What was that about? One interpretation is that he could have a well-hidden self-deprecating sense of humour. Or is too busy to read beyond 'Yes'.

21 Nov 2015

13 Nov 2015

Whistling in London
Watch any English movie made before 1940 and set in London,
and at some point one of the male characters will start whistling a tune. It
could be the milkman on his rounds, the delivery boy on his bicycle, or the
shady character loitering on a street corner; but you can guarantee that before
long, someone will start to whistle.

Yet now nobody
whistles in London. The habit has entirely died out here, although it remains
more popular in the English regions. Why should this be? A group of sociologists
noticed this phenomenon in the 1970s and decided to investigate. Their theory
was that whistling can be seen as an expression of individual public
confidence, and its absence showed that Londoners were now more fearful in
public places, not wanting to draw attention to themselves.

Whistling campaign

The newspapers took this up and filled pages with the
opinions of commentators and politicians, deploring the lack of social
confidence. A ‘bring back whistling’ campaign was started, with famous Londoners,
including the writers Will Self and Julian Barnes, deliberately whistling around
town in the hope that it would catch on.

However the discovery of a diary kept by a milkman in the
East End of London during the second world war threw a quite different light on
the matter. During the blitz, when London was bombed every night for three
months, he wrote of the ‘nasty whine and whistle’ of the bombs, and of being
told to ‘shut up that whistling’ by neighbours as he delivered the milk in the
morning. ‘You’ll bring them on’, he was scolded.

So the latest academic theory is that whistling is absent from
London for the same superstitious reason that it’s discouraged on board ship:
it brings bad luck. It seems that three months of wartime bombing did away with
whistling for Londoners, and the habit has never returned.

Visitors of a humorous disposition might like to whistle a
tune in public to see what happens. Be ready to receive some strange looks and
muttered comments from locals, especially those from the East End, who still
carry the folk memory of high explosive bombs whistling down from the night
skies.

29 Jul 2015

Lord Sewel, whose behaviour was of course deplorable etc, but who made some cracking off the cuff character assessments of fellow-politicians, should have read my new book 'The Manopause Manual'. Then he would have realised that chaps of his age should be choosing a new shed and wondering whether to grow a beard, not organising "sex'n'drugs romps" in hotel rooms.

The real reason we are so upset about this scandal is not that Lord Sewel is a politician - I mean,what do we expect? - but that he is getting on in years. In your sixties it's undignified, right? He should have done all that bad stuff in his youth.

So Lord Swell, if you're reading this, please contact me for a free copy of my book, which will explain how to behave at your fine old age. It's not all boring - you can select a new hobby, go to the pub with your pals, and perhaps even buy a sports car at last.